Featured Long Durational Work

WHEN I LEFT THE HOUSE IT WAS STILL DARK (2013), ODYSSEY WORKS

Duration: Three months

Text byOdyssey WorksCover photograph byAyden L. M. Grout Detail of score for the Odyssey Works performance "When I Left the House it was Still Dark" by Travis Weller

"When I Left the House it Was Still Dark" (2013) was a long durational, ephemeral performance made for an audience of one. The creative process for this performance, as with other Odyssey Works projects, is an act of attentiveness and devotion. The team spends several months studying the participant before beginning to compose a set of experiences designed to move him or her in a profound way. By immersing themselves in the life of an individual and creating fully participatory experiences, Odyssey Works establishes a new paradigm for the relationship between artist and audience. Traversing theater, literature, visual art, music, dance, dream analysis, web hacking, and a myriad of other forms, Odyssey Works has been creating performances for an audience of one for more than a dozen years, inserting themselves into the lives of individuals, hoping to change one life at a time. Between the months of July and September 2013, Odyssey Works created a performance specifically for Rick Moody, an author living in New York City.

Diagram by Abraham Burickson and Danielle Baskin

It began one evening when Rick's priest gave him a children’s book titled "The Secret Room," to read to his daughter. This book, which appeared to have been written in the fifties, was actually a creation by Odyssey Works.

Shortly after this, Rick was given an invitation to visit Sid’s, a vacant hardware store in downtown Brooklyn. The store became his own secret room, and he continued to visit it weekly for the rest of the summer. In the space, he encountered a variety of objects foreshadowing moments to come in his odyssey. Among these was a notebook detailing the story of a man searching for a cellist whose music deeply moved him, a recording of string music, and a photograph of a prairie. One day after visiting Sid’s, Rick was brought to the airport and given a plane ticket to Saskatchewan, Canada. When he arrived, he was driven to the prairie in the picture where he found the cellist from the story performing a variation of the music he had been listening to for weeks.

Dancers Kristin Swiat, Giovanna Gamna, Lydia Chrisman, Maya Orchin, Jessica Myers, and Annie Saeugling performing choreography by Jen Harmon for "When I Left the House it was Still Dark" in New York City in 2013. Photograph by Ayden L.M. Grout

Odyssey Works' cellist Leanne Zacharias performing "When I Left the House it Was Still Dark" in Saskatchewan, Canada, in 2013. Photograph by Ayden L. M. Grout

Nearly one hundred complete strangers and members of the public convening at Metrotech Plaza for the climax of the penultimate day of "When I Left the House it Was Still Dark" in New York City, in 2013. Photograph by Ayden L. M. Grout

Participant Rick Moody during a climactic moment with the public in "When I Left the House it Was Still Dark" in New York City, in 2013. Photograph by Ayden L. M. Grout

Nearly one hundred complete strangers and members of the public convening at Metrotech Plaza for the climax of the penultimate day of "When I Left the House it Was Still Dark" in New York City, in 2013. Photograph by Ayden L. M. Grout

After this, other aspects of the performance began to manifest in Rick’s everyday life. Dancers in red appeared in the streets, on the subways, on the Brooklyn Bridge. A review of the story about the cellist appeared on NYTimesBooks.com. When meeting new people, it became increasingly hard for Rick to distinguish whether they were performers or just people. The border between the quotidian and the performative became inapparent. Rick found his life completely overtaken by Odyssey Works' actors, dancers, musicians, and set designers.

In the culminating days of the performance, actors guided Rick between locations in Brooklyn, an experience which allowed him to meditate on the symbology of home. On the final day of his odyssey, he awoke in New Jersey and his family and friends led him back to Brooklyn.

Odyssey Works was founded in San Francisco in 2001 by Director Abraham Burickson and Matthew Purdon, when they began to reconsider their previous work – theater, writing and visual art – and explore ways to bridge the gap between artist and audience. Since then, Odyssey Works' collaborating artists have worked intensively to find a more audience-centric mode of creativity. The result is a series of productions tailored to a single-person audience. The Odyssey Works cast of artists include award-winning poets, designers, programmers, an architect, playwrights, artists, dancers, and an expert dream analyst. The core team members, Abraham Burickson, Ayden L.M. Grout, Ariel Abrahams, and Jen Harmon, were joined in the production of "When I Left the House it Was Still Dark" by composer Travis Weller, Designer Danielle Baskin, and a score of other artists and performers. Every Odyssey Works production also involves the participation of the friends and family of the participant, and of dozens of members of the public who come not as audience but as parts of the experience, helping to make it happen. Odyssey Works has produced pieces in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Austin, TX with the support of Cornell University, University of Texas, the BEAT Festival, and the Zellerbach Foundation. The New York Times has called Odyssey Works “A beautiful inefficiency,” and former participant Monica Akin said the experience was “Like walking into the chambers of your own heart and then finding someone else standing inside there, too.” Their website can be found here.